Monday, 23 June 2014

Monday began slowly with an attractive height of 1" and warm water at 57 degrees small flies and floating lines should be the preferred tactics this week. Welsh angler Simon Jones is no stranger to the Dee and set to with his small flies tied on a two fly cast and 18' leader began the week with a grilse of 5 lb from the glide. By Tuesday Simon continued to catch with fish landed in red brae and high burn and Regular Dee angler Gordon Tait started off with a fish from red brae from the Dinnet bank. John Jones invited his daughter to fish for the week and he diligently Ghillied her on the beat and netted two sea trout on the Tuesday evening for her. Gordon and I headed to Long Cast from the dinnet bank which is now opened up and a lovely piece of water when the river is low , and landed a lively sea trout from the head of the pool. Gordon has been fortunate to land some big dee fish this year following his 20lber in red brae this April he managed a cracking 17lb salmon from red brae on the Wednesday evening this week. Wednesday night bought some heavy rain fall and Thursday morning we were met with a big dirty river which peaked at 3'6". Salmon fishing was tough in these conditions however the sea trout remained active and over the next two days we managed to land 5 sea trout. The river dropped as quick as it came up and by Friday we were back in our main productive pools and some salmon rewarded out efforts. Steve Mulligan landed a stunning 12lber from Pol Slachd and John Jones ghillied his daughter's Lucy her first Dinnet salmon of 4lbs from Pol Bar. We finished with 10 salmon and 13 sea trout. Again river conditions mid week were unstable and our rods all fished hard changed tactics and were rewarded when the salmon were here.

The final week of May started with promising conditions with river heights at 6" and 53 degrees still holding some peat stain from a wee rise on Sunday Charles Hill and party began full of optimism. Andrew Markland set the ball rolling with a cracking 12lb salmon from Logie Pool taken right in the tail from the north bank on a home tied tiny size 14 dee sheep. By Tuesday the river continued to drop down to 1" but the peat stain became more concentrated and even with great efforts we failed to continue catching. Wednesday bought another rise of water peaking at 11" and temperatures rising to 57 degrees which appeared to bring in a run of fish. By mid week Charles Hill landed a stunning 11lb salmon in the evening in Logie, Andrew winkled another from Red Brae of 5lb and I was lucky to get a 12lber from Pol Slachd in the evening. Wendy and David had a great first three days of the week although fish less it was a pleasure to teach them fly casting and fishing and watch them progress and learn throughout there time here. Nigel Lammas caught a very fresh springer from Logie on the Thursday morning and Andrew caught the first salmon of the season from the Glide.

Charles Hill's daughters shared a rod for the later three days with dad and took to Flyfishing extremely well casting fantastic loops and showing lots of enthusiasm. Jenny hooked her first ever salmon in red brae from the north bank on the Thursday all on her own the fish proceeded to fight diligently and amongst all the slippy wading and acrobatic fighting it managed to drop off, next time I feel the fish won't be so lucky.

Friday proved to be a better fishing day sitting at 5" and a much better colour to the river we managed another 4 salmon including a lovely fish from the glide from the north bank caught by Robert Markland.

Throughout the week there were occasional sea trout caught totaling 5. Successful flies were dee sheep, willie guns, cascades and mini collie dogs in fast pools like Trochie. It certainly was not a prolific week for May but our rods diligently fished hard and finished with a respectable tally.

Next week was our best week of the season last year so it will be interesting to see what happens this season.

Sunday, 1 June 2014

The week ending 24th of May once again produced a respectable result here it Dinnet. Finishing the week with 12 Salmon most of our rods were rewarded with a tussle from a Dee Springer although there certainly was not an abundance of Salmon in the pools. It appears that we have lost the majority of our residents on the beat as all the fish that were encountered were very fresh and they also seemed to be moving through the beat fairly quickly. Fortunately Logie pool held several residents and remained at a great height throughout the week and produced the majority of salmon for the week.

Conditions throughout the week were just fine, maybe a little bright on some afternoons but as a whole favorable for salmon fishing. Starting the week at 7" almost all the pools were were at a good fishing height and water temperatures remaining between 50 and 54 degrees produced wonderful conditions for fishing small flies on floating lines.

Monday began with a blank day and little was seen on the beat however Lowrie Hickman started things off with a sparkling fish from Logie of 6lb's on Tuesday. Colin Espie added to the tally with the first fish from Top Bobby this season on an inch of black at night. On Wednesday a fish of 12lb was landed from Pol Slachd and Thursday bought another springer from Logie. A slow start to the week however things picked up on Friday with 3 fish landed in Logie and a cracking 13lb fish from Red Brae caught by French angler Bernard. By Saturday the river height dropped to 2" and it is uncanny how those low water pools begin the fish and the fish do start lying up there at suitable heights. We landed the first fish from Trochie and High Burn along with two more from Logie and Pol Slachd.

Successful patterns were silver stoats, crathies, munro killers and some home tied patterns in sizes 11 to 14.

I really hope the river picks up as June draws closer and we start to see Grilse runs and Sea Trout running the river, time will tell.